Coco Ma
Studio art MFA
CUNY Hunter College
Specialisms: Fine Art / Sculpture / Printmaking
Location: New York, United States
Coco Ma
First Name: Coco
Last Name: Ma
Specialisms: Fine Art / Sculpture / Printmaking
Sectors:
My Location: New York, United States
University / College: CUNY Hunter College
Course / Program Title: Studio art MFA
About
Coco Ma is a New York-based Chinese artist working in mixed-media installation, sculpture, and mark-making. She builds her work from daily debris, such as branches, Chinese herbal medicine, toilet paper, and cosmetic and food packaging, the small residue of routine. In her hands these materials anchor larger bodily and architectural forms, carrying personal history much the way emotion settles into the female body. Across surfaces she paints, carves, and transfers marks, stretching familiar associations and unsettling habitual ways of seeing.
The work grows from the distance between her childhood in Beijing and her adult life in New York. Rather than resolving the gap between these two lives, she lets her materials hold it. Her current research focuses on ancient Chinese architecture, drawing on structural elements such as the wooden threshold, door lintel, Bixi stele, and caisson ceiling. These are forms that organize space and mark the passage between inside and outside, one world and another. In her recent sculptures these references become bodily and spatial, carrying the same sense of crossing that runs through a life lived between two cultures.
Ma holds an MFA in Studio Art from Hunter College (2026) and a BA in Studio Art and Philosophy from Bard College (2020).
Hunter College MFA thesis show at 205 Hudson st Gallery, New York (02.2026). Works from left to right: Sill (two-part hanging sculpture), Qiàn (sonic sculpture from Turtle Women Series), Witness (standing position), Beyond (and Above), Qiáo ((sonic sculpture from Turtle Women Series), Shǔ (sonic sculpture from Turtle Women Series), Monoprints with artist’s frames (various sizes on the walls).
Competitions
